Wrestling Madness

it's cride it's huge it's fake--and we love it

Like a woman's orgasm or Van Gogh's sunflowers, if you're going to fake a wrestling match, it had better look damn real. At the least, a fake should be so entertaining its spectators actually enjoy the dupe. In 1982, wrestling matches had about as much entertainment value as a goiter--and not the fun kind of goiter, either. That same year, a starry-eyed young man decided to send wrestling, with its no-rent set design and Not Ready for Cable Access performers, to finishing school. Seventeen years later, in 1999, that simple idea has turned out to be worth just over $1 billion annually. For those new to the concept of money, that's a whole lot of it.

Flashback. In 1982, Vincent Kennedy McMahon bought his father's wrestling business, which, like all wrestling businesses of the era, was regional, and decided to take it national. He made enemies, signed deals and named his new company the World Wrestling Federation. Then, in a (text continued on page 151)Wrestling Madness(continued from page 120) bold move, he came clean and told the audience what it had long suspected: Wrestling is as fake as an air kiss from your lesbian ex-girlfriend. "Wrestling is entertainment," McMahon says. "Story line is really what the World Wrestling Federation is about. Come on, this is Dynasty. This is Dallas." Who could have predicted that fans would like wrestling more when they knew it was fake?

McMahon's WWF competes in the national wrestling marketplace with Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling. It's a new generation of wrestling in which the distinction between heels (bad guys) and baby faces (good guys) is fuzzy and the plots are laced with sexual innuendo and profanity. Cable TV is the main battleground. On Monday nights, the WWF's Monday Night Raw, on the USA Network, takes on WCW's Monday Nitro, on TNT. The edgier Raw targets viewers in the 18- to 34-year-old demographic, while Nitro courts the deep-pocketed 18--49 set. Both companies offer a glut of wrestling programs during the remainder of the week, but the Monday night shows are so popular they're siphoning off audience share from ABC's Monday Night Football, an actual sporting event where fewer than half the games are fixed. Smaller wrestling outfits such as Philadelphia-based Extreme Championship Wrestling employ the same basic concept but include liberal amounts of blood, barbed wire and assorted cracking sounds. But for casual wrestling fans, there are only two choices: the WWF and WCW.

As Shakespeare almost said, "the feud's the thing," and the front men in the WWF--WCW feud are McMahon, 53, and Eric Bischoff, 43, president of WCW. Each man constantly bad-mouths the other, and even the wrestlers take a break from kicking the crap out of weaker guys to berate the rival organization.

"Vince McMahon genuinely cares about this business," says WWF star the Rock, a.k.a. Rocky Maivia. "Ted Turner, however, couldn't give two pieces of monkey shit about it." Interestingly, this interpersonal and interleague animosity is real, making it an anomaly in the scripted world of pro wrestling.

Blurring the line between what is real and what is fertilizer is a big part of wrestling's success. Both Bischoff and McMahon cast themselves as key players in their leagues' never-ending dramas. One WWF plotline that lasted several weeks had McMahon clashing with Stone Cold Steve Austin and firing him on the air. Austin then filled McMahon's new convertible with concrete. McMahon had him arrested, and Austin retaliated by hunting McMahon with a crossbow. Then Austin kidnapped McMahon, tied him up, put a pistol to his head--and fired it. The pistol was a gag gun--it shot a flag out of the barrel--but it caused McMahon to lose control of his bladder. All this on national cable television. And you thought South Park was racy.

And it's not just management. Wrestlers do their part to confuse reality. Take Austin's official stance on charity appearances for children: "I'm not kissing any snot-nosed rugrat." In real life, there is Austin's alter ego, Steve Williams, a different man with a publicity-friendly attitude. "I meet a lot of Make-a-Wish kids," Williams said. "They're so inquisitive. I never have seen one of them scared. Meeting those kids is a thrill for me." WWF's Big Show, a.k.a. Paul Wight, a terror in the ring at seven-foot-four and 500 pounds, says being a bad guy "hurts my feelings a little bit" and "I hope my mom doesn't find out."

Purists, fret not: Two elements of wrestling are entirely real: the athleticism of the wrestlers and the pain they endure. The current megastar of WCW is Goldberg, a.k.a. Bill Goldberg, former nose tackle for the Atlanta Falcons and one of the world's toughest Jews (not counting the waitresses at the Carnegie Delicatessen). Diamond Dallas Page, also a WCW star, is a former college basketball player who usurped the Diamond moniker from that sport's diamond defensive alignment. In addition to being athletes, wrestlers must be cagey performers and quick thinkers, because, while wrestling's story lines are scripted, the action isn't.

"On the Monday Nitro telecasts, five minutes before the match I don't know who my opponent will be," explains Page. "Things change." And while Page says the bout's outcome "is predetermined, the match is not choreographed. If it were, wrestlers would be the greatest memory experts in the world. When a guy like Goldberg grabs you, he just takes you. Things change, people get injured. There are broken necks, torn knees. Right now we've got nine guys out after knee surgeries."

But there is a pot of gold at the end of the injured-reserve rainbow. When Jesse "the Body" Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota last November, several wrestlers realized there was a world beyond camel clutches and hammerheads. On November 9, during Monday Nitro, WCW's Hollywood Hulk Hogan announced his candidacy for president. McMahon, Hogan's former boss, won't say whether or not he'll vote for Hulk, but does maintain, "If Hogan wins, it'll be a hell of an inauguration ball."

Real Name: Steve Williams

Affiliation: WWF

Need to Know: Locked in an ongoing, megalomaniacal, Roadrunner-versus-Coyote--like fight with WWF owner Vince McMahon. Took his name from the old TV show "The Six Million Dollar Man."

Real Name: Bill Goldberg

Affiliation: WCW

Need to Know: Wrestling's newest superstar. Also, for those keeping score, a nice Jewish boy, son of a nice Jewish doctor. Possibly the only wrestler in history who wrestles from right to left.

Real Name: Page Falkinburg

Affiliation: WCW

Need to Know: Was Jay Leno's tagteam partner during a new low in celebrity self-humiliation. Is dyslexic and therefore may not realize Goldberg wrestles from right to left.

Real Name: Dwayne Johnson

Affiliation: WWF

Need to Know: Former college football star (University of Miami) and the first third-generation wrestler in the WWF. Oddly, also always refers to himself in the third person.

Real Name: Mark Callaway

Affiliation: WWF

Need to Know: Dresses in black, heads the Ministry of Darkness and gives the WWF a hint of mock Satanism. Famous for casket matches. Finishing move: the Tombstone Piledriver.

Real Name: Mick Foley

Affiliation: WWF

Need to Know: Turned a cult following into a WWF title reign. Wrestles under three different personas (a.k.a. Cactus Jack and Dude Love). Famous for being thrown off a 20-foot cage.

Real Name: Terry Bollea

Affiliation: WCW

Need to Know: His $5 million-per-year contract is the most lucrative in professional wrestling. Locks horns with George Hamilton in competition for world's worst fake tan.

Real Name: Paul Wight

Affiliation: WWF

Need to Know: At 7'4" and 500 pounds, he complains: "I was watching one of my matches on tape. My wife says, 'Honey, when you stand next to Lex Luger, you look like a tub of shit.'"

Real Name: James George Janos

Affiliation: Reform Party

Need to Know: Governor of Minnesota. In the ring, he was known for outlandish attire and outrageous statements. In the statehouse, he's managed to tone down his wardrobe.

Sable

the wwf's sexiest superstar--and our favorite wrestler--tells what goes on behind the scenes

The Burden of being a Champion: "The championship belt weighs at least 20 pounds--I can't wear it, it just slips down to the floor--and they cost about $10,000 to make, so you carry it with you on airplanes. When airport security sees it in the x-ray, they go crazy. My husband [wrestler Marc Mero] is the worst. He takes it out, holds it up over his head and shouts, 'I'm the WWF's Women's Champion of the World!' It embarrasses me to death."

Signs of the Times: "It's getting so that everyone in the crowd is holding a homemade sign. Lately, I've seen a lot of Ready, Willing and Sable and Sable Got Milk signs. The one Marc and I got the biggest kick out of was, Marc Mero is a wife beater--because that's all he can beat."

Locker Room Practical Jokes: "Before the match is a loose, fun time. Some of the guys play football and stuff. But there's a lot of practical joking, too. You'll find your bag locked shut with a strange padlock. Or they'll just hide your bag right before your match. Owen Hart is probably the worst practical joker of the group. You always have to keep your eye on Owen."

Brushes With the Rich and Famous: "We've met everyone: Hank Aaron, David Copperfield, Geraldo Rivera, Muhammad Ali. Michael Jackson wanted to know where I got my costumes made. Jerry West of the Los Angeles Lakers came backstage once with a poster for me to autograph. I said, 'Who would you like this to?' and he said, kinda sheepishly, 'To me.' And Jimmy Carter told us his mother, Lillian, had been a big wrestling fan and he used to watch wrestling from the White House. No wonder the country went to hell--he watched too much wrestling."

The Numbers

[hey, they don't lie]

8 Of the top 15 Nielsen-ranked cable TV programs (March 1-7,1999), number that were WWF or WCW programs.

0 Number that were news, conventional sports, dramas or concerts.

93,173 Largest paid attendance for indoor sports-entertainment event (Wrestlemania III in 1989).

29,376 Average major league baseball attendance in 1998.

2.3 million Approximate number of paying fans who attend a wrestling match in one year.

90 seconds Time it took Wrestlemania XIV to sell out Boston's Fleet Center.

8.5 minutes Approximate time it takes light from the sun to reach Earth.

$1 billion Approximate revenue grossed by the WWF and WCW in one year.

You make the call

in the ring, fights are scripted. outside the ring, real tempers flare. Who's right? who's wrong? you make the call!

complaint:

Stone Cold Steve Austin (formerly Stunning Steve Austin) says he was unceremoniously fired from WCW by Eric Bischoff.

Austin's side: "I was in WCW. I was talented in the ring, but they didn't have a whole lot for me to do. I called a meeting with Eric Bischoff and said, 'I don't see you guys going in any direction with me.' Bischoff told me right to my face, 'Steve, you go out there in those black trunks and those black boots, and there just aren't a whole lot of ways we can market that. If you can't think of something better to do, you need to call Extreme Championship Wrestling or New Japan and see if they can give you a job.' WCW sent me to Japan. In a match, I jumped off a top turnbuckle and tore a triceps. I wrestled another two and a half weeks with a torn triceps. When I went home, I had surgery and was out of action for six months. That's when I got fired."

Bischoff's side: "That's a flat-out lie. That is bullshit. I can show you the footage of probably the last five appearances Austin made here at WCW. He wasn't in black tights and black boots. He was wearing glitter and long blond hair. The torn triceps? That's another lie. He blew out his knee. Steve had been on the injured list for quite some time. I was paying him a lot of money. We had tried to call Steve several times to get an idea of his rehab status. We were getting a lot of evasive answers. My feeling, whether I was right or wrong, was that he wasn't being forthright about his injury. I wasn't inclined to continue to pay him six-figure money while he was sitting at home pouting. So I got rid of him." Steve Austin or Eric Bischoff? You make the call!

Complaint:

WCW's Ric Flair fails to show up for a live WCW telecast and is sued by Bischoff.

Flair's side: Flair wanted time off to see his ten-year-old son in an amateur wrestling competition. He claimed he received permission from the proper WCW authorities to miss the Monday Nitro telecast in question. Flair confronted Bischoff during a scripted tiff on WCW's Monday Nitro and shed real tears.

Bischoff's side: Bischoff claims Flair never received written permission to miss the Nitro telecast. "Ric firmly belives to this day that he had every right to no-show an event. I firmly believe he doesn't have the right to no-show an event. And despite the fact that we were working together, we still litigated that issue. We have since negotiated a settlement and now we're moving forward."

Ric Flair or Eric Bischoff? You make the call!

Complaint:

"Creative differences" forced Vince McMahon to unceremoniously oust WWF champion Bret Hart.

Hart's side: Hart, unhappy with the increasingly racy WWF story lines, made his displeasure known publicly, prompting McMahon to call for his resignation. Hart, a Canadian, claimed McMahon demanded he surrender his title in Canada. Hart was averse to the idea, fearing a loss would ruin his hometown image. McMahon and Hart ultimately agreed that, rather than losing outright on native soil, Hart would save face and surrender his belt and title because of a disqualification.

McMahon's side: During Hart's match with Shawn Michaels, McMahon decided to alter the bout's predetermined outcome. While Hart was on the mat--but not pinned--the referee, under orders from McMahon, signaled the bell to ring, ending the match. Hart suffered the ignominious defeat he had feared and engaged McMahon in a real postbout backstage screaming match, which was caught by a documentary crew and later aired on A&E.

Bret Hart or Vince McMahon? You make the call!